It's taken me awhile to admit it to myself and then even longer to admit it to the world at large, but we like
Twilight. Just the movies. Not the books. Let's be clear.
I mean... it's a movie series about vampires and werewolves and hilariously exaggerated teenage emo-ness. The movies are not as anti-feminist as the haters let on. There are even ways in which I feel that they're empowering for young girls. Not perfect, but not entirely toxic. Additionally,
this article says I am a genius for liking Twilight, so that pretty much settles it.
The soundtrack is also filled with your favorite tragic hipster music. Ugh. So good.
Most importantly, though, all of the movies were filmed in and outside of Portland! That means ROAD TRIP TO SEE ALL THE TWILIGHT THINGS!
We started out with breakfast at
Carver Cafe in Damascus, OR.
Above is a shot from the movie. Look! We sat right where Bella and Charlie Swan sat! We also parked our Subaru right where Bella's orange truck was parked in that shot.
The restaurant mostly still looked just the same as it did during filming with a few small changes including this awesome Twilight corner. Also, they do a mean chicken fried steak and eggs.
The exterior of the restaurant had not changed a bit.
On the way to our next Twilight spot, we stopped to enjoy our favorite Columbia Gorge overlook just for kicks.
The sweet peas were in bloom,
and the view pretty much can't be beat.
If Carver Cafe hadn't changed much since shooting, the
View Point Inn was a bit of a different story. The View Point Inn was actually one of the places I was looking forward to visiting most. It's breathtaking in the movie and I was hoping it was going to be this quaint little hotel/restaurant.
Turns out,
it burned in 2011.
This is what it looks like now.
Here's a shot from the movie of the gorgeous room where they have the dance floor for the prom.
This is what it looks like now.
Pretty sad. Did I mention that we had to do a super lot of trespassing to get these pictures? Trespassing was sort of the theme for the day.
Bella's house was still in good shape. There's a totally reasonable sign outside about how you can feel free to take pictures from the road, but as long as you don't be weirdos at the family who lives there.
From the movie:
It looks just the same!
We also drove out to St. Helens that day, which is where most of the Port Angeles shots are filmed. We saw this sweet mural, which was painted by the film crew.
You may notice another mural, which presumably was already there.
These pictures are from the parking lot where Edward saves Bella from some real rapey a-holes using his shiny mom Volvo.
Here's the alley where the rapey a-holes were creepers.
Here's a shot from our trip of the front of the building used for the Thunderbird and Whale bookstore in the movie (which I was intensely hoping was a real place).
And here's the same building in the movie:
Now it's a law office? Maybe? Hard to say since it's pretty overgrown and there's a punching bag on the back porch with the back door swinging wide open? It was a little tresspass-y to get this picture as well.
I thought our Twilight adventures were over for the time being, but on a trip to visit our friends Dave and Dana a few weekends later, we decided to take a quick side trip to the high school where the exterior shots were filmed for the fictitious version of Forks High School.
We parked our Subaru right where Edward parks his mom Volvo. Just look at him be sad with that fancy mom car.
How could you not love these movies!?
Our dog peed right where Bella almost gets hit with a van.
So now you know. We like Twilight. Kind of a lot. Did I mention this trip only covered the first movie?
